gaming laptops

[lawll]

Originally Posted by r00t [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There is no need to have "support" for hyperthreading. Create a process, launch 8 threads, you now support it if its available (arguable, it's up to the OS how it wants to pool them). On the i5, at best you will now have to context switch between 4 threads (and still have the same if not more cache misses, which is the biggest criticism of hyperthreading). Im just browsing the internet, checked task manager and system wide I have 1006 threads (though most are probably sleeping).

Any type of multitasking at all on your computer will benefit from the i7.

Games can barely leverage more than 2-3 threads/core for the most part. Unless video editing, 3D rendering and other tasks that tend to be more heavily threaded account for a significant chunk of your workload then no, i7 is not worth the expense.

Multi-threaded or multi-cored CPUs have been around for nearly 10 years and games have barely started leveraging that. It is likely going to take many years longer for game programmers to effectively leverage quad-core. So yes windows itself can use all the cores but whatever app you are running most likely will not use all available cores. And who the hell runs a game, web browser, itunes and a few other programs at the same time on a few monitors to even use all the cores? On a personal computer clock speed is still king since most apps will only use 2-3 cores.

L2 compute

[Halius]

Dang with that budget I would personally go with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152590

$1,599
Ghost series so it's in the thin and light category. Plus it has the 870M gpu:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-....107792.0.html

Scroll to the bottom, shows frame rates of 35 on ultra for Metro: Last Night, which is pretty good for a laptop card.

Or I would go, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152686

Which is $1,899 but has 16 GB RAM, instead of 12, but as others have said unless you are doing a lot of multi-tasking isn't a huge deal. Also has the 970M. It is also the ghost series (I am particular to the thin and light designs). The 970M runs Metro: Last Night at 53 FPS on ultra, which is damn nice for a laptop card.

Didn't know you had such a decent budget or I wouldn't have even thrown out my lenovo suggestions lol.

[lawll]

Originally Posted by Halius [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Which is $1,899 but has 16 GB RAM, instead of 12, but as others have said unless you are doing a lot of multi-tasking isn't a huge deal.

The top of the line games via graphic engines as in BF4 and crysis only utilize 8GB of ram and about 2-3 cores. Get the best GPU that you can find in a laptop and everything else is subpar in the performance list.

[Juryiel]

I like the Gigabyte P25Wv2 , 870m, i74810 or something like that, etc, pretty good price. Would upgrade the default ram from 8G but otherwise it's pretty much good to go.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834233045

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Halius [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Dang with that budget I would personally go with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152590

$1,599
Ghost series so it's in the thin and light category. Plus it has the 870M gpu:

I'd be very nervous about any "thin and light" MSI latops. I don't know about that particular model, but many of MSI's other lightweight gaming computers have SERIOUS heating issues. In many of them there's only a single fan shared between the CPU and GPU so:

• that fan gets super loud when you play a graphics-heavy game
• the laptop gets very hot, physically; the models I read about got so hot after only 1/2 hour of gaming that people couldn't even keep them on their laps
• when the one fan couldn't cool the computer fast enough (which happened often) it had to throttle the CPU/GPU .. which means you pay for 100% of the CPU/GPU, but only get some percentage of its power

I couldn't find any reviews that mentioned the heating issue for this particular model, so it might be just fine. But if I were buying one, I'd be sure to test it for at least an hour with the newest game I own as soon as possible to see if it gets hot/slow ... before the 30-day return window expires.

[Juryiel]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

• that fan gets super loud when you play a graphics-heavy game
• the laptop gets very hot, physically; the models I read about got so hot after only 1/2 hour of gaming that people couldn't even keep them on their laps
• when the one fan couldn't cool the computer fast enough (which happened often) it had to throttle the CPU/GPU .. which means you pay for 100% of the CPU/GPU, but only get some percentage of its power

The fan noise can be a general issue with thin/lightweight gaming laptops, though I haven't had any issues with the Gigabyte I've had for a few months other than it being noisy when hardcore gaming. The fan noise is a worthwhile tradeoff for actually having the laptop be a laptop. I had one of the larger SLI laptops before and i basically treated it like a desktop because it was annoyingly bulky, and that was much more annoying than some fan noise.

[loramin]

If you don't mind the lack of a warranty this is a great value:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16834231633R

Also if you want a whole bunch of computers to consider, here's the URL list from a spreadsheet I made recently while shopping for a similar laptop:

http://pro-star.com/index.php?r=prod...&model=W670SJQ
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-GE70-Apach...H12_B00IMTQ5I2
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-asp...7-000059fc2cb0
http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6678-...wconfigure=yes
http://www.pro-star.com/index.php?r=...model=P170SM-A
https://www.powernotebooks.com/confi...p?special=1584
http://www.amazon.com/CyberpowerPC-F.../dp/B00JAEXLUS
http://www.xoticpc.com/force-1763-22...wconfigure=yes
https://www.digitalstormonline.com/c....asp?id=873193
http://www.gentechpc.com/config.asp?...us-G750JS-RS71
http://www.amazon.com/G750JS-DS71-17...ref=pd_cp_pc_0
http://www.amazon.com/G750JS-i7-4700...FO/ref=sr_1_12
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...CCODE=WEBGOOPA

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Juryiel [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The fan noise can be a general issue with thin/lightweight gaming laptops, though I haven't had any issues with the Gigabyte I've had for a few months other than it being noisy when hardcore gaming. The fan noise is a worthwhile tradeoff for actually having the laptop be a laptop. I had one of the larger SLI laptops before and i basically treated it like a desktop because it was annoyingly bulky, and that was much more annoying than some fan noise.

Totally; and even if it does reduce the GPU power by a bit, a small hit might be a worthwhile trade-off for the portability. For me personally though noise is important (I often use the laptop while my wife is watching TV), so that turned me off of MSI.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Originally Posted by r00t [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

100% falsifiable statement

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's clear he wants a high end gaming laptop so it's hard to understand why you keep bringing the budget build recommendations that were dated 5 years ago into the conversation.

Also more than 8gb of RAM is perfectly acceptable. He can RAMDisk a lot of games with 16gb. My desktop has 32gb just for this purpose.

I've got a setup to run p99 on ramdisk at home. When seconds of loading count, you kind of have to :3 And thanks for the recommendations everyone. Going to take a few weeks to get the money together -- would rather not buy a toy on payments you know?

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Totally; and even if it does reduce the GPU power by a bit, a small hit might be a worthwhile trade-off for the portability. For me personally though noise is important (I often use the laptop while my wife is watching TV), so that turned me off of MSI.

Portability don't mean shit to me -- long as it doesn't need to be constantly plugged in that sonofabitch could weigh 90 pounds. Sound isn't an issue either, fuck everyone else, i wear headphones. let it sound like a harrier :3 need good air flow.